Breaking up, even with your hairdresser or gardener, can be wrenching

Breaking up is hard to do. And that's true even if the person you're jilting is your hairstylist, your gardener or your dentist.

Lynn, a Berkeley resident, says that she's been wanting to break up with her stylist for more than a year, but she hasn't been able to summon the nerve. She's happy with his work, but he's too far away -- in San Francisco, where she once worked -- and can no longer afford the $150 to $250 she spends each visit, not including tip, parking, bridge toll and gas. She worries about finding someone new that she likes and adds that she's embarrassed to admit her stylist is too expensive for her.

"It's the hardest thing to do," says Lynn, who didn't give her last name to avoid the chance her stylist would read about her conundrum. "How do I explain it to him without using the old 'It's not you, it's me' line?"

When it's time to make a change in your life, why is it so hard to tell the person who cuts your hair, for example, that you need to see someone else? Sometimes, experts say, part of the problem is that we start feeling that we are friends with the stylist or the manicurist, for example, having spent hours in his or her chair discussing our jobs, families, vacations, triumphs and tribulations. When one day we're not happy there anymore, it can feel wrenching to have to tell the service provider, "I'm outta here."

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In addition, few of us relish having conversations in which we're delivering bad news to others.

Anxiety about these kinds of breakups is very common, says Pleasanton resident Sue Fox, author of "Etiquette for Dummies." Like Lynn, some people will soldier on with service professionals they're not thrilled with for ages, just to avoid a potentially difficult chat. "It's tough. No one wants to hurt anyone's feelings," she says.

Fox and others say that if you're unhappy with the service you're receiving from a stylist, house cleaner, gardener or other service professional, consider talking with him or her about why you're not content before you decide to dump that person. Perhaps the two of you can resolve the issue to your satisfaction.

But even those who have made a firm decision to break up sometimes agonize about actually doing the deed.

"I'm totally stressed," emailed Andrea Rich, a Lafayette resident, a few days before she planned to break up with her yard-maintenance guy and ask him to give back her garage-door opener.

"I'm breaking up with him Saturday and I start with a new company next month. ... It's really like breaking up with a boyfriend and asking for your key back."

But it shouldn't be painful to say goodbye to a formerly valued service provider, Fox says. If you don't have the courage to speak with him or her in person, you can mail or email a note to your stylist or manicurist, she says, thanking them for their service and explaining that you need a change. You can even send a small gift if you've been close to the person.

"You're paying them, and if you're not happy with their services, let them know you want to try something new," Fox says. "It's so cliché, but honesty is the best policy."

A conversation or a note is certainly preferable to the plan of just never calling the person again, she says, or making up an excuse like an out-of-town move.

You might run into the person later, after all.

That's what happened to San Francisco resident Jenny Randall, who several years ago left her stylist of seven years, disappearing from his appointment book without explanation.

"It came back to bite me because he lives in my neighborhood. I felt really guilty," she says. When she ran into him, they chatted briefly ("Great to see you!") without acknowledging that she'd unceremoniously flown the coop.

What she wishes she'd explained when she left: "He saw me through my divorce and all the pain and agony. I think I just didn't want to revisit that chair because it brought back so many memories."

She says that she -- and probably many others -- fear the service provider they're dumping will be angry and upset.

The second time Randall broke up with a stylist, she faced that fear, and it all worked out fine. "I told him we needed to have a chat, like a boyfriend." She told him she valued his friendship and expertise, but she was moving into a new phase of her life and needed a change.

The stylist, in business for 25 years, understood her decision.

"It was the best thing ever because now we go for a drink and just hang out, and it's no big deal," she says.

Karie Bennett, a stylist for more than 30 years, and owner of Atelier Salon Spa and Atelier Studio at San Jose's Santana Row, says she and other stylists never like losing clients, but they do understand that customers sometimes need a change. At her salons, she says, she tries to let customers know that they are not locked into using a particular stylist -- she'd rather have the customer try out several stylists rather than leave the salon altogether.

When people do make the decision to leave their stylist or salon, she recommends that they write a note or email to the stylist rather than disappearing -- because stylists do wonder what happened when their clients vanish without explanation, and they might even be worried, she says.

"Just getting a note in the mail saying here is why this doesn't work for me anymore is a great thing to do," she says. "Do the courtesy of letting them know if there was something you were unhappy about. It's a chance for us to learn as well."

From time to time, she says, she has even had to break up with customers. Once it was a male client who was making sexually suggestive comments. But more often, her breakups have been with clients who are habitually late or don't show up for appointments.

In that case, she says, "It's really appropriate for us to invite a client to go elsewhere."

But just as clients can find it hard to initiate a breakup conversation, it can be stressful for stylists, too, when the shoe is on the other foot.